Today I decided to at least start the wedding website page, even though all we really know right now is the date and place. I keep saying it’s tentative, but it’s the date I really really want.

Since I intend to be brutally honest in these blogs I will tell you why. It’s because it’s the Saturday after Easter and my church will be full of these beautiful white Easter lilies. Free decorations! That none of my friends or family have to do! Plus there’s a good chance I would have picked lilies anyway.

Armed with some confidence, I log in to theknot, and click “start my wedding page”. I immediately regret it. The first decision is the “look” of the page. There are categories, like season, formal, themes, colors, holidays. I really liked the purple color scheme one, because I like purple.

But is this supposed to have anything to do with my wedding colors, which probably will not involve purple? Is it supposed to match my invitations?

I liked the formal schemes too, because they seemed really simple and elegant. But can I only use those if I am having a big, fancy-pants wedding?

At this point Jerrad, who has been standing behind me because he has gamely offered to “help” says, “well I’m going to head over to my house and do some, um, stuff”.

Bastard. This was his idea in the first place.

I say “so you don’t mind, I can just pick whatever”. He nods, and continues to nod as I say “you don’t even want to hear about it later do you”.

Hmmph. I settle on the spring theme, the wedding’s in spring, I figure I can’t go wrong.

Then the instructions helpfully say you can skip over the parts you don’t know yet. Duh.

Next is our names, which are creepily already filled in. Next is “hometown”. I briefly consider writing “Asstown, USA” next to Jerrad’s name but I don’t. I did tell him before we even got engaged all he had to do was get a tux and show up. Sigh.

I decide to skip hometown, because I am already losing patience and getting bored. Next is “about me”, “about him”, and “how we met”, all of which I skip. Why? I just said why. Pay attention. Then “date of engagement”. I do that one because it’s easy. June 3.

Next page is the wedding details. I sigh again and pour some brandy in my coffee. I fill in the date, “venue” (is this a concert?), time of day and place. For some reason, only date and place show up on the finished product. Whatever.

Next is the “attendant” categories. There’s a place for their names, a drop down box for role, and “description”. What do they mean by “description”? Is this where I write “sister”, or do they want to know that she’s petite, has dark hair, and a tendency to be bossy?

I definitely skip that one. We haven’t decided on attendants for sure, although I plan to ask my sister to be matron of honor. This is when it occurs to me that I haven’t even called my sister to tell her I’m engaged. I totally suck. Big etiquette mistake? Check.

Next is “reception details”. This is where I give up and click “save”. I look at the finished product and notice that under our date it says “293 days to go!”. I panic a little even though that is plenty of time.

I glance at the other links on the page and notice something called “Save the Date”. Instead of quitting before I had a full-blown headache, I click on it because I didn’t know what it was.

Now before you start making fun of me, my first wedding was being planned like 11 years ago. Well before the time of wedding websites and whatnot. In case you are dumb like me, Save the Date is where you send out “things” telling people you are engaged and to, well, save the date.

Part of me thinks that’s not a bad idea, (you’re letting people know it’s coming, so they can request time off work, make travel arrangements, etc). Then the part of me that likes to mock wins.

OK, none of you will be receiving a magnet with an engagement picture of us wearing matching clothes with our wedding date. Then there are cards you can send out, that to me, look like exactly like wedding invitations. I’m not doing this shit twice.

I decide Save the Date sucks.

First, we’re not ready to figure out the entire guest list right now, which you basically have to do before you send them out.

Second, well, all my other reasons are variations on the theme of WE DON’T KNOW YET! Haven’t I already accomplished the point of Save the Date by doing the stupid wedding website?

Tags: save the date, The Wedding, wedding planning, wedding websites

This entry was posted by Cathy on Saturday, June 9th, 2007 at 5:53 pm and is filed under The Wedding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.